One of the biggest challenges in creating cute digital planners is coming up with an idea for binder rings. They aren't required, of course. Blotter style planners are cool, and there are a lot of planners that have more of a bound book look. No rings necessary.

But just as with paper planners, a lot of folks are lured in by the rings, coils or discs that hold their memories together.

If you are just creating for yourself, there are a lot of options. There are some options you can purchase. The iDesign kit I mentioned in a previous post, available at Digitally Speaking has a spiral coil included. There are some sets of rings available or purchase at graphicriver.net for $5 for a personal use license. A commercial license is $75 and is good for ONE use. These are nice rings, but if you purchase one of these sets, please read the terms of use carefully. Very carefully.

Some user made rings are in the sharing files in the Digital Planning Facebook group. These are for personal use.

If you like the look of rings in a binder, such as the ones used in the pictures at the top of the page, Tam Spires has made her rings available for purchase, including an unlimited commercial license, for $20. You can also use the 20% off coupon at the right of this page. I think this is a special price, which is subject to change. The rings are different from the ones shown above, but similar. The center strip is missing, but it is not really necessary as that gets covered up with the pages. The ones she has available are in several different colors including gold, silver, rose gold, pink, blue, purple, blue and red. You can purchase these at Spires Media.

In search of the perfect planner rings, I have purchased all of these, and I made a few rings of my own in Photoshop, but they weren't ME. One of the joys of design is incorporating your own personality into what you design, and rings definitely add personality to a digital planner. So one rainy afternoon, I played around in Keynote and and Photoshop and finally came up with some rings (like 150 sets of them!) using basic design tools and metallic, solid and glitter background papers. What I came up with reminds me more of the Happy Planner disc system than regular rings, although they don't really look like Happy Planner rings. They do add some color and sparkle to the planner pages, and these fit my personality. (Can you have too much glitter in your life? I think not.)​

You can see why I consider myself a planner ring ding-a-ling from this screenshot of my file of rings in my Keynote app. While I do most of my designing in Keynote, sometimes I still turn to photoshop on the computer as I did with the bar in these rings. I used various glitter, solid and metallic backgrounds and masked them with a rounded corner rectangle. Shadowing works to make some of them appear to be curved, when they are really just straight bars. The "holes" were created with the round shape in Keynote, filled in with a dark gray or black color andd spaced, grouped and copied until I had enough for a set. then I pasted the bars I had created on top of the holes and added the shadowing.

Whether you find some you like from other sources, or create your own, use rings and other components that make your heart sing. You are creating something special.

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Author

Welcome! I'm Dianne, a retired journalism teacher and publications adviser who is still addicted to planning and playing with technology. I share my life today with my husband Buz, six kids and their significant others, 21 grandchildren, 2 great grandchildren, 10 goats, 11 chickens, 4 dogs and a potbellied pig.

​I'm into planner sticker designing and have a shop on Etsy and I also enjoy Bible journaling.

I am in no way affiliated with Seriously Simple Digital Planners, Spires Media, iPlanner Digital Planners or Digitally Speaking. I purchase all digital planners and am not compensated in any way for reviews or articles.

Nor am I affiliated in any way with GoodNotes, MetamojiNotes or OneNote or any other app which may be mentioned here.

All opinions are my own.

I am, however, the owner/designer of DiDiDigi-Planners by Grandma DiDi Designs.